Catching A Train
by Shadowxwolf
Summary: One day Gwen woke up and just couldn't take it anymore - she had to get out. Jack let her go thinking it was for the best, but when a stranger starts talking to him, he's forced to revise his theory. Jack/Gwen fluff


I thought of this on the train down from Durham to London, so that's where the travelling references come from, in case you were wondering. So this is a lovely angsty bit of fluff - can you get that? Angsty fluff? Oh well, so continiues my descent in to Torchwood themed dilerium...please just R&R it would make me so happy! And go read me Torchwood Four fic, cos it's funny, and I said so... (pouts)

Anyway...

* * *

Gwen walked slowly, head down, pulling the black suitcase behind her along the pavement. Ever since Rhys' death – a traffic accident, nothing to do with Torchwood – she had felt haggard and drawn. A major part of her life had just slipped away in a random throw of cosmic dice that she could have done nothing about. Torchwood, she had once foolishly believed, had the power to do anything, everything, if it so wanted. It was a stupid thing to think, and she had paid highly for her naivety. Even so, her grief had faded away into background noise sooner that she thought it should, though she had kept up the pretence out of guilt and duty for the death of her husband.

Jack had been there for her, as always. A shoulder on which to cry, a confidante, a friend. He had given her all the time off she needed, with no questions asked, and had protected her as much as he could from the pain.

But that was all. Only ever a friend, and always so distant, as though she was delicate, like porcelain, or dangerous, like a wounded predator, and mustn't be held too close or too tightly. It caused her anguish to come to work in the mornings and have him watching her, seeing in his eyes how he longed to stride down from his office and embrace her, telling her everything would be right again as her world turned to ash and darkness while she watched. Jack's face, his blue eyes, had shined out like a beacon to her in those days while she grieved. But always out of her reach. It was then that the full force of the most important revelation of her life had hit her: she was in love with Captain Jack Harkness. She always had been. And that only made everything even harder.

He would never, she realised, make a move to claim her. He loved her too much to cause her pain, which he thought was inevitable. All that was left in his wake was death and destruction – that was all there would ever be. Gwen mused over this as she purchased her ticket from the automatic machine. A train was just departing, and she could hear the rhythmical clack of the wheels on the track as it headed on its way. She sat on a bench to wait.

One day she had woken up, and it had just been too much. Too much to go into work and face the man she now grieved for – not for something lost, but for something never there. And so, summoning up all the courage she could, she had asked to resign. Jack's face had been shocked and angry, regretful and longing, disbelieving, horror-struck and confused all at once, and Gwen had seen behind his eyes a terrible suspicion that her decision as his fault. That had rocked her deeply, he had never seemed so lost as he had that day.

Needless to say he had refused. She had kept asking and asking, until he had caved to her beautiful, pleading eyes. It caused her torment to stay, one thing he had promised himself to not let happen. Yet he had still refused to retcon her. As usual, he didn't give reasons, but Gwen fancied she knew, and hoped she was right.

Half an hour. Just half an hour until the train came to sweep her away to London, where her new life would begin and she would leave Cardiff, and Jack, behind.

* * *

Across the other side of Cardiff, Jack sat in a cafe window, and pretended to look out for weevils. The SUV was parked around the corner, just in case one showed itself in daylight. But the Captain's mind was a nuclear reactor of different thoughts, all bouncing around and colliding to take his imaginings on random tracks of possibility.

Gwen was gone. He had to accept it. No she wasn't, not yet – he could still catch her before he left. But she had resigned, she _wanted_ to go. Did she though? Jack had seen the tears flying from her beautiful cheeks as she had fled his office that day. He had wanted to follow her, comfort her, but it wasn't his place. He scoffed at that. What was his place? Around Gwen, he was never sure – and Captain Jack Harkness was never, never sure.

He was so engulfed by his switching, flying mind that the old man who had sat down at his table with a creaky sigh made him start. Another thing that never happened.

'Penny for them?' the old man asked pleasantly. He was dark and rough skinned, with silvering hair and a soft and slow Caribbean lilt. Jack assessed him with eyes slightly moist from his dark musings.

'It doesn't matter anymore,' he muttered, and resumed staring out of the window. The old man sighed.

'A woman,' he said sagely.

'What?'

''Tis only a woman can make a man look like that,' the old man explained in his melodiously deep voice. 'And one at that who the man is so in love with, he cannot admit it even to himself.' He chuckled. 'I bet she has fire and beauty and eyes that make your heart want to melt.'

'What makes you think that?' Jack asked sharply, curiosity overcoming stony resistance.

'I know the type,' he chuckled back, gazing away as if remembering someone he was fond of. 'What is her name?'

'Gwen,' Jack conceded. As much as he hated to admit it, talking to someone, a complete stranger, helped ease his sore nerves. The old man nodded in understanding and relaxed a bit more into his seat.

'What is she like?'

An image of Gwen's face broke before Jack's eyes. She was smiling sadly at something, though he couldn't place the memory. And he found himself spilling his heart out to this man, this total stranger. Something he could never have done with his team. 'She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,' he said. 'Smart, funny, compassionate, loyal. And she isn't afraid to tell me what she thinks either,' he laughed bitterly, looking the old man in the eye, all too aware that tears were silently filling his eyes. His voice cracked. 'I knew she was what we needed the first time I saw her, standing in the cold, refusing to give up what she believed. Did I mention that she's stubborn too?' A pause. 'I loved her since the moment I saw her.'

The old man's eyes were crinkled at the corners now, twinkling. 'I'm guessing you didn't tell her that,' he said. It wasn't a question.

'Couldn't,' Jack choked. 'She was with someone else, and I didn't want to ruin her life completely. Our job is. . .dangerous at the best of times.' His eyes closed for a second, and he shuddered at something sharp and painful. 'Then I left. I was stupid and I went without thinking. When I came back, she was engaged. My chance was over.'

'It's never too late to tell someone something that important,' the old man replied slowly. 'But I'm guessing there is more to the story.'

Jack nodded. 'Her husband died a few months ago, in an accident. She was torn apart by it, and she resigned, and now, I've lost her for good.' He hated himself as he said it, because it meant admitting that all of this was his fault.

The old man was looking at him sternly. 'You haven't lost her. I bet she's sitting somewhere right now waiting for you to come and get her back. I bet she loves you like you love her.'

Jack glared at him, annoyed now that someone he didn't know was pressing on his personal life. Not even his team did that. 'What makes you so sure?' he asked sceptically.

The old man chuckled once more, fishing in his pocket for something. He laid a watch on the table, a woman's watch. A watch that looked strangely like. . .

'What have you done to her?' Jack suddenly demanded, reaching for his Webley. The old man raised his hands calmly.

'Steady on. She's fine – well, almost. She stopped me on her way to the station and offered me one hundred pounds and her watch if I could persuade you to go after her.' The old man paused. Jack looked stunned. 'She didn't want me to tell you either,' he continued. 'But I think it is the only way you're going to get off your buttocks and fight for her.'

'She deserves better than what I can give her,' Jack said softly. 'I can't give her anything.'

The old man's hand slammed down on the table, causing several people to look round in alarm. 'You can give her yourself,' he said. 'Is it a question of deserving, or needing? It seemed to me that all your Gwen wanted in the world was for you to come rescue her. She deserves that at least.' Jack stopped and stared. _Your Gwen._ His Gwen. He wanted her to be that; he needed it so badly. 'Go after her,' the old man insisted.

'What should I say?' Jack asked. 'What can I say with everything I put her through?'

'What you told me,' the old man replied, smiling, thankful that he was now at least getting a reaction from the young American.

Jack stared off into space for a moment, all whirls of thought crashing into one monumental fact. He had to stop Gwen getting on that train, whatever the cost.

'And take this with you!' the old man shouted after him. 'I don't have a reason for a woman's watch.' The old man watched the American as he tore from the cafe. He relaxed back into his seat, thinking to himself about the strange sorts of things young people did when head over heels in love.

* * *

Gwen was sat nervously on the wire bench on the platform, checking her watch every five minutes or so. Would he come? Would he let her go? She thought back to earlier in the morning, when on a whim, she had offered her taxi driver all the money in her purse to find Jack and get him to come after her.

'He'll be sitting in the window, tall, dark haired, blue eyes, wearing an RAF coat and probably staring into space,' she had described. 'But please, don't tell him about this. Please.' She had been near crying at the time, as she gave the cabby the name of the cafe. Part of her wondered why she put blind faith in this man, and gave him one hundred pounds when he would probably not fulfil his end of the bargain. But she felt she could trust him.

'How much time she I give him?' the cabby asked in a Caribbean accent.

'Half an hour,' she replied.

'I'm afraid I don't have a clock,' he said.

'Take my watch.' She hastily unstrapped it and shoved it in the driver's window, oblivious to his protestations.

The taxi had pulled away after the driver checked that she would be all right. Gwen had wanted to scream and shout no, things would never be all right again, especially if Jack didn't come. But she said a muted 'thanks, everything's fine', and glided morosely up to the station proper.

Now she was sitting, watching the departure board with mixed dread and anticipation. The digital clock ticked the seconds off. Each second that Jack still hadn't arrived. She was starting to worry now, afraid that the train would come and Jack wouldn't be there, and all the crushed hopes she had vainly been holding onto would swamp her in a tsunami of despair. She couldn't deal with that._ Jack, where are you?_

* * *

'Ianto,' I need all roads on the way to Cardiff station clearing,' Jack barked down his comm. He was driving like a madman through the city streets, blue lights flashing so he wouldn't be stopped. Still, people were slow at moving out of his way, and there was more than one sickening crunch behind him as he raced towards Gwen. She wouldn't approve of his driving, he thought ruefully. How ironic that this crazy pace was for her.

'Ianto!' he hollered. The traffic wasn't being cleared fast enough.

'It should be free in a few minutes,' Ianto replied. In the Hub, there was tense excitement rippling through everyone. Toshiko was diverting traffic and trying her best to delay the trains as Ianto removed any plausible obstacle from Jack's path. Owen, who had no expertise in this area, just egged them on, his knuckles white as they gripped the back of Toshiko's chair. None of them wanted to see Gwen leave; they would be losing a friend and a comrade, and besides, they would (and had been) on the receiving end of Jack's bad moods caused by her departure.

A gravelly, indistinct voice called out over the loudspeakers that the 10:42 to London was now arriving. Gwen's train. She tried not to let the disappointment well up too far, because she feared she wouldn't be able to move. The emotional torture had by now manifested into a physical pain that ripped at her insides like a vengeful weevil. She made her way down the platform to her coach as the train pulled up. Her head was bent so nobody could see the salty tears glistening on her cheeks.

She waited for the passengers to disembark: a businessman on a mobile phone, a student, a mother with a small child. Indistinct people thronged the platform, the noise they made blurring in Gwen's ears.

'Gwen'

Someone had called her name. Faintly. She snapped round, looking, staring with hope now flooding in from all sides. She knew that voice. It sang her softly to sleep at night, though she would never admit these imaginings to anyone.

She couldn't see him, he wasn't there. She cursed her imagination and turned once more to board the train.

'Gwen!'

She turned again. This time, he stood there, bold as brass, as though he had materialised from thin air, coat billowing about him impressively, like wings.

'Jack,' she whispered, wanting to fling herself at him.

'Gwen,' he said with choked emotion walking towards her. There was pain in his eyes, and tears. There was something small and white in his hand – a retcon pill.

'Jack, what're you –' Gwen started, staring in horror at the little white tablet. He looked torn.

'Don't worry Gwen, this isn't for you,' he said softly. They were standing only one or two feet apart now, and Gwen could see every tired line of his face, every emotion that flashed behind his blue eyes. He looked older now than he ever had before – the things he had seen were finally catching up, and it was her fault.

'Then who?'

'It's for me.' He swallowed quickly and continued. 'You've done something to me Gwen. Something terrible. You terrify me and you don't even know you're doing it. You torture me with those eyes of yours, and you rip my heart in two every time I see you and remember you're not mine. I used to dream about wars and monsters lurking in the darkness, and now all I see is you, dying, in so many ways I've lost count, and somehow that is worse than all the horrors I've witnessed put together. I don't know what you've done, Gwen, or how you've done it, but it's tearing me to pieces.' Gwen stared at him, confusion shining through thick tears. She was speechless, but Jack hadn't finished.

'The thing is, I know it will be even worse if you go, and I know that if you do, I_ will_ be able to die. I'll still exist, but without you my life will be empty and nonexistent. I wouldn't be alive without you, Gwen Cooper. So, if I have to, I will take this pill and try to forget you, just to take the edge off everything.' He laughed darkly. 'Though I doubt I could ever fully forget someone like you.'

Jack cupped Gwen's face gently, brushing the hair away from her eyes. 'I guess what I'm trying to say Gwen is. . .I love you. So much. Please, stay.'

Gwen was wordless, her vision blurred and her throat constricted. Never before had Jack looked so serious, so desperate. He was begging. She had fantasised about this moment since she couldn't remember when, imagining what he would say and what she would say back. Now the moment was here, however, she couldn't think of anything. He loved her. He had finally said it. A wall of emotion slammed into Gwen and rocked her physically, draining her of the ability to balance. She fell forward and Jack caught her, as he always did.

'Gwen?'

His warm scent enveloped her, his arms comforting, making her safe. This was where she belonged, she knew. How had it taken them so long to realise this?

'I love you too,' she whispered.

* * *

Aw, wasn't that cute? Review if ya liked it!


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